Word: gleevec
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...drug that has proven effective in fighting cancer might cause heart troubles. Gleevec, as national news sources widely reported late this summer, has been linked to 10 cases of congestive heart failure. Gleevec has also, as has been less widely reported, been linked to thousands of lives saved. Concerns about “another Vioxx” may be blindly accepted, leading the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase regulation and make it harder for patients to get access to live-saving medication...
...drug will cause us heart trouble than that not taking a targeted cancer-killer will result in our deaths? Rationally speaking, it’s not: A death from a heart attack is not much worse than a death from colon cancer. So, if I have cancer and Gleevec makes it 20 percent less likely that I will die from that cancer but it also makes it 10 percent more likely that I will die from heart failure (in fact, it’s estimated that only 0.1 to one percent of Gleevec users will be affected), I would still...
...indeed, that is what many of the more careful news reports recommend. The report that found the 10 cases of heart problems noted at the same time that Gleevec is a “wonderful drug and patients with these diseases need to be on it.” But, in general, recent coverage of the adverse side effects of certain drugs tends to generate calls for more stringent—and thus longer and more expensive—FDA screening...
...independent analysis, and decide whether it’s worth it to them. The D.C. Circuit’s ruling is a victory for our rights and a victory for our health. We should applaud it, and tell the FDA that it must allow terminally ill patients to take Gleevec or whatever other medications might save their lives...
...turns out that Gleevec was a Cinderella story - a perfect matching of drug to cancer. The specific cancers for which Gleevec has wrought such miracles - chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) - rely pretty exclusively on a pathway that Gleevec targets, making these diseases ideal victims for a targeted therapy. But breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers, the leading types of cancer in the U.S., aren't as accommodating...